What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

[Markgway]

Psycho II (1983-USA) ***
Well-crafted (and much belated) sequel serves as a respectful tribute to Hitchcock's classic, favouring suspense and characterisation over gore, though it peters out toward the end and introduces some controversial narrative choices. Cast (led by Anthony Perkins) is first rate.

Psycho III (1986-USA) **
Peculiar (and unnecessary) continuation of the now-franchise has some interesting ideas up its sleeve - think religion and redemption - but too often confuses black comedy with goofiness and falls apart well before the nonsensical fade out. Perkins directs and displays some talent.

[saltysam]

Pieces 2/5 this is not a good movie but it gains a point because i love watching Christopher George chewing the scenery. Some ok gore effects but it's all a bit silly..does have one very good jump scare though.

Grip Of The Strangler 2/5 Boris Karloff is a writer taken over by the spirit of the Haymarket Strangler,who's name he has been trying to clear. melodramatic but mildly effective 50's british thriller.

The Comeback 2/5 Jack Jones (virtually playing himself) is an american crooner trying to make a comeback after years away.He divorces Holly Palance and comes to England to record his album in a spooky mansion looked after by a creepy elderly couple. Pete Walker film is an ok watch with an decent cast (David Doyle,Pamela Stephenson,Bill Owen).

Turbo Kid 2/5 new genre homage movie riffs on ideas from Mad Max, Terminator etc. some nice gore effects and while there is humour here it's played surprisingly straight at times. Michael Ironside as the baddie seems at points to be channelling Dennis Hopper's Waterworld character.

Monty Python's Meaning Of Life 1.5/5 The Python team jump the shark with this bloated effort.Mainly dire except for a couple of brilliantly done musical numbers and was i rwally supposed to find the Mr Creosote sketch funny

[Markgway]

Pieces 2/5

....does have one very good jump scare though.

Yeah, when Bruce Le leaps out of the dark for the strangest cameo ever.

Monty Python's Meaning Of Life 1.5/5 The Python team jump the shark with this bloated effort.Mainly dire except for a couple of brilliantly done musical numbers and was i rwally supposed to find the Mr Creosote sketch funny

I've never been able to get entirely thru this one. Militantly unfunny and the Creosote sketch is just disgusting.

[Markgway]

A Blade in the Dark (1983-Italy) ***
88 Films BD looks very good given film's 16mm origins but that scanner noise is outrageous.
Original Italian track goes out of sync for about 5m @ 77m.
Apparently the English dub is also OOS, but not at the same point (I checked that much).

[saltysam]

Black Samurai 1/5 Even Jim Kelly's cool charisma can't save this Al Adamson dud. the dvd is heavily censored and overdubbed amateurishly...possibly the uncut version which seems hard to find would play better. groovy opening credits though.

7th Voyage Of Sinbad 3/5 Solid Sinbad adventure with great stop motion effects from Ray Harryhausen.Kerwin Matthews is a little stiff in the title role but this is an enjoyable romp.

[Markgway]

To All a Goodnight (1980-USA) *
A killer in a Santa suit stalks a girls' finishing school.
Just... fucking... terrible....

[saltysam]

To All a Goodnight (1980-USA) *
A killer in a Santa suit stalks a girls' finishing school.
Just... fucking... terrible....

in the annals of awful killer santa movies i bet it's not as terrible as Don't Open Till Christmas

[Masterofoneinchpunch]

Blind Man: A fish saved my life once.
Cord: How?
Blind Man: I ate him.

Circle of Iron (1978: Richard Moore) aka The Silent Flute which that name is still shown on the end credits and is the better title.

The plot is rather basic. It is a Joseph Campbell type hero (Jeff Cooper as Cord) who most pass the travails of three trials in his journey and find out the contents of a book and become the keeper of the book. On his journey he meets with several characters played by David Carradine in Peter Seller’s mode (blind man, monkey man, Chang-sha and death -- death’s outfit is so bad they edited around and sometimes modified the film so it would not show much.)

This feels like a cult film. It is rarely uninteresting, has some interesting themes and ideas and plenty to make fun of, and I never found it uninteresting. The martial art scenes are mostly bad. Jeff Cooper cannot fight or act. The editing of the fight scenes are inept with way too many close cuts, cuts to non-participants in often silly ways and often puzzling placement of camera. Of course it does not help when Cooper faces off with the most bizarre posturing and every fight of his with David Carradine is an exercise in not laughing on how bad it is. They often look on how two drunk friends might face off against each other after watching Bloodsport with random placement of fists and too much circling around. Carradine’s acting (and all the main supporting actors) was good enough and is so much more fluent than Cooper whose acting is quite bad. He is so awful he would have been better giving a Buster Keaton like countenance then his random faces he makes during the scenes. I have seen better acting from Bernie’s corpse in Weekend at Bernie’s.

The filming in Israel is one of the best aspects of the film. The scenery is fantastic and brings forth an almost Conan The Barbarian type of world. I also liked the Blind Man’s aphorisms which were often dressed in simplified Zen-like koans. Most of them are in the initial script and I am sure most come from Bruce Lee. You get a feeling of his philosophy permeating throughout. Given that how little I have heard on this film, other than from reading about Bruce Lee, it seems to be quite underrated (in the cult sense.) I am now going to lend it to several friends. They will like the Man-in-Oil.

Now off to watch Zardoz again.

If you have the Blue Underground release (either of them), it comes with a copy of the script by Stirling Silliphant which Bruce Lee had talked it over with him (I am not sure if Bruce wrote a story first or just discussed his ideas with Silliphant.) Lee was the play the Carradine roles while James Coburn was to play Cord. The script was much more similar to the film that I originally thought. There were new ideas to the movie like the Man-in-Oil and the violence and sex was toned down a lot. I still do not know why the movie received an R-rating. The version I saw would easily pass for a PG-13 nowadays.

[saltysam]

Circle Of Iron is a strange cookie.need to give it another watch.

Kantemir 0.5/5 A group of has been/wannabe actors arrive at a remote location to start rehearsals for a grisly new play. Mind numbingly awful throughout,Robert Englund looks embarrassed throughout but must have needed the pay cheque.

Too Late The Hero 3/5 Solid if a little overlong WW2 actioner from Robert Aldrich,excellent cast led by Michael Caine & Cliff Robertson with some fine british character actors providing support. the climax is a classic. The uk dvd is non-anamorphic, this needs a decent release.

[Markgway]

To All a Goodnight (1980-USA) *
A killer in a Santa suit stalks a girls' finishing school.
Just... fucking... terrible....

in the annals of awful killer santa movies i bet it's not as terrible as Don't Open Till Christmas

Haven't seen that one.

[Markgway]

Dressed to Kill (1980-USA) ***½
The best of DePalma's Hitchcock-influenced thrillers with a touch of the giallo and many memorable set-pieces (the final scene feels like a bit of a cheat though).

[Markgway]

Death Sentence (2007) **½
Very dark, very violent revenge saga is openly critical of taking the law into one's own hands, but doesn't seem to offer much alternative given how disdainful the law is toward genuine victims of crime. Kevin Bacon gives a solid performance as a grieving father out for blood. As much as I like John Goodman I would've cut out all but one of his scenes (the rest putting added strain on an already creaking plot).

District 13: Ultimatum (2009-France) **½
Action-packed sequel doesn't quite match up to the original and flounders in left-wing politicking... the French government wants to evacuate a lawless ghetto and blow it up for reconstruction displacing criminal warlords. Sounds like a good idea to me and yet these are the bad guys? OK, so they go about it the wrong way... but still.

The Double (2013-UK) **½
Incredibly weird psychological drama in which a nerdy young man is dominated by his doppelganger. The black comedy is often pointed and insightful, at other times it's pretentious and derivative (Gilliam, Kafka are two influences that spring to mind). Sure to divide viewers so approach with caution.

[Markgway]

My main problem is the ending. I think it should have ended during the final shootout. The part where they sit down next to each other. The end.

Possibly. End with a (literal) bang.

Interestingly... in the theatrical version (the one on my BD) Kevin Bacon is still alive at the end, but I've read that in the Unrated Version he's seen to die at the end, in a subtle but crucial change.

[Markgway]

Reservoir Dogs (1991-USA) ***½
Tarantino's first and still best film. Dialogue, direction and performances all first rate.

[Markgway]

Shoot to Kill aka Deadly Pursuit (1988-USA) **½
Serviceable great outdoors thriller in which FBI agent Sidney Poitier and mountain man Tom Berenger track down a vicious killer. Good premise plays out its hand too soon eliminating genuine suspense before the hour mark.

Stand Up Guys (2012-USA) **½
Al Pacino, out of prison after a 28-year stretch, hooks up with best pal Christopher Walken for one last night of misadventure. Quite good, but not great. The stars are worth watching of course.

Housebound (2014-New Zealand) ***
Don't know if anyone's seen this let along thinking of buying it... but if you do go for the NZ/AU BD which is in the proper 25fps/1080i/50hz format. The US release @24fps/1080p is slowed down.

[Markgway]

Mother's Day (1980-USA) *½
Trio of thirtyish women are terrorised whilst on camping reunion by inbreds.
Bearable only once the obligatory rape and humiliation is done with.

[HungFist]

Skin Trade (USA/Thailand, 2014) [DCP] - 3/5
An enjoyable action vehicle for Dolph Lundgren and Tony Jaa. It looks visually pretty good, the predictable storyline keeps moving at good pace, the action is decent, there's an even amount of message and exploitation of the very same topic, and it's fun to see Dolph and Jaa together. The supporting cast is great as well: Michael Jai White, Ron Pearlman, Peter Weller, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, even if they don't have all that much to do. This could've been a lot worse.

[grim_tales]

Shoot to Kill aka Deadly Pursuit (1988-USA) **½
Serviceable great outdoors thriller in which FBI agent Sidney Poitier and mountain man Tom Berenger track down a vicious killer. Good premise plays out its hand too soon eliminating genuine suspense before the hour mark.

Stand Up Guys (2012-USA) **½
Al Pacino, out of prison after a 28-year stretch, hooks up with best pal Christopher Walken for one last night of misadventure. Quite good, but not great. The stars are worth watching of course.

Housebound (2014-New Zealand) ***
Don't know if anyone's seen this let along thinking of buying it... but if you do go for the NZ/AU BD which is in the proper 25fps/1080i/50hz format. The US release @24fps/1080p is slowed down.

Was 25fps/50Hz the way it was shot? 24fps is usual for "film" speed.

[Markgway]

Was 25fps/50Hz the way it was shot? 24fps is usual for "film" speed.

Yes, it was shot on HD cameras @ 25fps. Not film.

[Markgway]

Don't Go in the Woods (1981-USA) *
Wow. Just wow. Even by the standards of cheap slasher flicks this is awful. The acting is at the level of a 70s porno and hindered further by hilariously inept post dubbing. This is the PLAN 9 of the genre. It may even be worth watching for a laugh. It's THAT bad.

[grim_tales]

Was 25fps/50Hz the way it was shot? 24fps is usual for "film" speed.

Yes, it was shot on HD cameras @ 25fps. Not film.

I didnt know that. Interesting Sounds quite unusual.

[Masterofoneinchpunch]

... I like Reservoir Dogs but it and Inglorious Basterds are my least favorites from Tarantino. My favorite thing about Reservoir Dogs is the "tribute" to Lawrence Tierney on the special features. The cast members talk about how insane he was. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. There are some crazy stories told. And if these stories sound too funny to be true, then check out the Seinfeld special features on the episode where he played Elaine's dad. He gives a great performance and you may be wondering why he never came back for anymore episodes. Its because he stole a knife from the set and scared the shit out of the crew members.

Speaking of Tierney I watched Silver Bullet 1985 recently. Tierney plays a bartender and adds nothing to the movie. It's a solid werewolf flick with a great cast.

I liked that whole extra when they discussed Tierney on Seinfeld. I found this online about it from an EW article:

3. Lawrence Tierney was originally supposed to have an ongoing role on the show.

According to the cast, Tierney—who played Elaine’s dad—took a knife from the set and put it in his jacket. When Jerry Seinfeld confronted him about it, Tierney responded by saying he was trying to make a joke… and then pulled the knife out of his jacket and started imitating the famous Psycho scene. “I remember looking at Tom [Cherones], I remember looking at Julia [Louis-Dreyfus], and just going, this is, we’re in the land of the sick now,” Jason Alexander said. “We’re in really scary territory.”

Louis-Dreyfus put it a bit more bluntly. “I’ll tell you something about Lawrence Tierney,” she said. “He was a total nutjob.”

My favorite films with Tierney are the film noir like Born to Kill (1947) and war Back to Bataan (1945).

[saltysam]

Fist Of Fear,Touch Of Death 0.5/5 this is a terrible movie but it's probably the 4th time down the years i've watched it,drawn like a moth to a flame. Karate stars head to Madison Square Garden for a tournament to find Bruce Lee's successor. probably libellous with some of it's lurid speculation it has to be seen to be believed.Bruce appears in redubbed Longstreet clips to make it seem he's being interviewed by Adolph Caesar then Aaron Banks, Ron Van Clief declares he was murdered and Fred Williamson keeps getting mistaken for Harry Belafonte. The middle section is a section of a childhood Bruce movie redubbed to show how he was keen on martial arts at a young age.more clips from what looks like a Taiwanese swordplay show that his great uncle was a legendary unbeatable Samurai ! crazy movie.

Cut Throats Nine 3/5 Bleak,savage spanish western. A wagon containing seven murderers heading for Fort Green is hijacked by bandits looking for gold. All seven,a seargant and his young daughter survive the attack but are left without a wagon and eventually horses. The seargeant has to find a way to get the prisoners to their destination while protecting his daughter. incredibly downbeat and at times pretty gruesome this nevertheless is a good,atmospheric film.Looks like Tarantino's Hateful Eight might have got some ideas from this one.

[Markgway]

Sabotage (1996-Canada-USA) **
Bodyguard Mark Dacascos teams up with FBI agent Carrie-Anne Moss in the hunt for a sniper assassin. Fair action thriller with more plot than usual. Never quite rises above DTV level though.

[saltysam]

Blastfighter 2/5 Italian First Blood/Deliverance type knock off from Lamberto Bava is brainless entertainment but ultimately pretty forgettable.worth a watch.